Through Glass Darkly: Episode Two Read Online Free Page A

them is just too narrow, and as a consequence they struggled to follow the creature when it was moving quickly, especially when the surroundings also provided so much natural cover.
    ‘This allowed the creature to get in close with the men, and injure some of them. And that’s when the second problem with the scopes became apparent. The officers with the scopes needed both hands to be effective, one to hold the scope, the other to aim their revolvers. Consequently as the injuries start to stack up the group had to start reducing the number of people using the scopes or guns, either that or restricting the group’s ability to move.
    ‘By the time we arrived from the boat yard to relieve them, the number of dead or injured who needed to be carried had got to the point where even with our numbers there weren’t enough able bodied individuals to allow the group to move and defend itself effectively, which put us in the impossible situation of just about being able to guard against the thing, or being able to move the group, but not both.’
    ‘So you walked off into the yard by yourself to call for help?’ Hughes asked.
    ‘It was a calculated risk,’ I admitted. ‘At the point when we arrived the creature had once again managed to get in close with the group and was attacking them hand to hand. But unlike the others, with my lensing rig I was not only able to see the creature with perfect clarity, I was also able to follow it amongst the melee, which it clearly wasn’t expecting.
    ‘As a result I was able to seriously injure it before it knew what was going on. Naturally, it fled and I guessed it would probably be half an hour at least before it would come out of hiding and realise it wasn’t being hunted.
    ‘Well within that time, we’d established the nature of the predicament the group was in, so I decided the only option was to do something unconventional, some way of getting the men out without putting other people at risk, all I needed was a two-way radio to be able to contact either the ship or the control room.’
    ‘But how did you know where you’d find a radio in the rail yard?’ Jenkins asked.
    ‘Fortunately, one of the railyard workers was able to direct me to the main site office, which he knew had a two way radio in the back to co-ordinate activity across the city.
    ‘As soon as I had that I gambled it was just a question of getting away from the group before the creature returned, and then not being unlucky enough to run into it on the way.’
    I was just about to ask a question of my own in return, about how confident the Captain was that the creature had been destroyed when the doctor called the bridge over the ships internal communication system.
    ‘This is Dr Zimmerman to the Captain, can you hear me?’
    ‘Yes doctor,’ was the Captain’s reply. ‘We hear you, is there a problem?’
    ‘I’m afraid so Captain,’ he responded. ‘I have several patients who need immediate surgical intervention of type I cannot deliver. Is there any possibility of diverting the ship to drop them off at a hospital with a surgical facility?’
    ‘We can certainly divert the ship without any problem doctor,’ replied the Captain. ‘But I’ll have to contact the ground to confirm which would be the best hospital for us to use. I’ll call you back as soon as I have an update.’
    The moment the Captain explained the situation to Platt over the radio he recommended we head for Belle Vue hospital, the same site that had accepted the bulk of the injured crew when the ship had first appeared. He had to place a few calls to confirm this, but it took barely two minutes for him to do so and then radio us back.
    Despite having a huge number of injured from the Khan still on their premises and only a few minutes to prepare, the hospital medical teams were ready and waiting to receive the injured and the dead as soon as we came to a halt above them. They’d already been patched through to the ship in order to